


Breathe.

by theunwillingheart



Series: The Grown-Ups Go to War [3]
Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen, Meditation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 14:11:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11083239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunwillingheart/pseuds/theunwillingheart
Summary: Great.  See you there.  –T.S.P.S. Bring an exercise mat.Spoilers for Book 8.  Takes place between Books 8 and 9.





	Breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Though I take an interest, I am by no means an expert on meditation. Please don't take any of the practices in this fic too seriously.
> 
> Disclaimer: Diane Duane’s. Not mine. Rats.

It’s Tuesday night, and Nita’s just about ready to turn in, when her manual buzzes.  She opens it to the messaging section to find a summons from Tom.

 

_Nita,_

_I’d like to start you on a new visionary technique.  Think you could drop by the house tomorrow morning at around 6:45ish, stay for fifteen to twenty minutes before heading to school?_

_-T.S._

Nita’s first period starts at 7:30am.  She would only have to get up about half an hour before she normally does to accommodate the meeting.

“Compose message,” she commands her manual.  “'Sure thing, Tom.  I’ll be there.'  Send message.”

_SENT_ , says the page.

A few minutes later, she gets a reply.

_Great.  See you there.  –T.S._

_P.S. Bring an exercise mat._

 

Nita cocks her head to one side.  _Exercise mat?  I think I last saw one in the basement somewhere…_   She heads off to check.

 

 

The next morning is bright and cool and dewy, suffused with a calming “wet grass” smell.  She’s dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, with a big, floppy hoodie on top.  She hikes into the covered area in her backyard and vanishes.

She arrives in the Seniors’ backyard, standing next to the koi pond.  Tom is sitting cross-legged on a teal mat on the patio, wearing a white T-shirt and black sweatpants.  His eyes are closed as if in concentration, but when she walks up to him, he opens them.

“Hey there, Neets.”  He gestures to the concrete beside him.  “Don’t hesitate to get settled.”

“Okay.”  Nita reaches into her claudication and pulls out a rolled-up magenta exercise mat.  It’s an old leftover from the aerobics craze, recently exhumed from a pile of anonymous junk in a corner of her basement.  She flops it down onto the ground and awkwardly sits down on top of it, trying to imitate Tom’s seemingly-effortless style and mostly failing.

_When did my legs get this long?_ she wonders exasperatedly.  _Where the heck am I supposed to_ put _all of this?_   And then she almost laughs.  _I’m complaining about having long legs_ , she thinks.  _Things really_ have _been quiet recently._   Of course, compared to the crisis that had been Spring Break, anything would seem quiet.

Tom looks over at her.  “Not bad,” he says.  “Could be a little more stable.  No slouching, back straight…”  He wiggles his shoulders back to demonstrate, and she copies him.

“Good.”  Tom turns his head to look forward again.  “We’re going to start with some basic breathing exercises.  This should help you with your visionary work, but it’s also good for energy management, which becomes increasingly important as you approach my age.”  He laughs a little.  “Best to start young with these things.  Anyway, your first specialty was plants, right?  So I think this will come naturally to you.  At least, more so than it did to me.”

Nita nods.  She’s since changed specialties a few times, but she can still remember how effortlessly she had once been able to slip into the consciousness of the green things.  Inside that state, breathing was experienced as its own kind of noble work—joyous and intentional.

“Alright.  We’re going to breathe to a count, like this— _in_ , 1, 2, 3; _hold,_ 1, 2, 3; _out_ , 1, 2, 3.  And then repeat.”  He uses his hands to illustrate the movement of his chest wall as he counts.

“So, from the diaphragm,” Tom says.  “In…”  Nita closes her eyes and inhales slowly, then holds her breath, counting in her mind.  “…Out.”  She exhales slowly and pauses, fighting the natural urge to take the next breath too quickly.  “In…”

They continue like this for several minutes.  During this time, Nita is amazed by how aware she becomes of every little sensation—the feel of sunlight on her face, the sound of birds singing on the roof above them, every little perturbation of the air.  _This is so nice_ , she thinks.  _How often do I get to relax and just…_ be _like this?_

Fifteen minutes pass fairly quickly.  “So that’s the physical side of things,” Tom says, as she picks herself up and rolls up her mat.  “Next time, we can work on focusing.  Same time tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Nita says, exchanging the mat in her claudication for her backpack.  She hoists the backpack onto her shoulders.  “Do you do this every morning?”

“I try to,” Tom says, following her up off his mat and stretching.  “Sometimes I forget, or get lazy.  Much to my detriment, I’ve found—the day tends to go better if I start it like this.  You’d think that realization alone would be enough to keep me on track, but…” he sighs, gives her a self-deprecating look, “…if we all made the right choices every time, there’d probably be no need for wizards.  Catch you later.”

“Later,” Nita says, and she heads off to school.

 

 

The next morning is a little warmer.  The temperature has been steadily increasing over the past two weeks, and Nita is glad for it—the quicker they can leave the chill of winter behind them, with all its attendant memories, the better.  Of course, even summer will end, eventually.  Winter always returns.  But she’ll deal with that when she gets to it.

“I want to give you some words to focus on,” Tom explains as soon as she sits down.  “It helps to have something to drown out the ‘noise’ that tends to float above human consciousness.  I find that the words of the Oath are pretty well suited to the task.  So-” He uses one finger to tap a rhythm against his knee, “In Life’s name; _hold_ , 2, 3; for Life’s sake.  In Life’s name…”

Nita matches her breathing to the rhythm, repeating the words in her mind.  They’re clarifying—but they _would_ be; they’re from her Oath.  She’s never paid this much attention to the words that started her on this path.  Of course, every wizard who takes the Art seriously returns to the Oath regularly, especially when charting difficult courses of action.  This is the first time she’s repeated these words so insistently, however.  It’s sobering.  She focuses as much as she can on them, letting the weight of them fill her mind and block out distractions.

At the end of fifteen minutes, she emerges from something of a trancelike state to find herself thirsty.  _Drat_ , she thinks, _I don’t have any water bottles in my claudication…_

“Tom?  Would it be alright if I grabbed something to drink from inside?” she asks.

“Sure thing, Neets.”  He opens the sliding door for her, then wanders off toward the koi pond.

Nita walks into the cool darkness of the dining room and through it into the kitchen.  A hiss of running water can be heard from somewhere upstairs—likely Carl, getting ready for work.  She opens the fridge to find several bottles of mineral water in the door.  She cracks one open and guzzles down several cool, fizzy gulps.  She’s screwing the cap back on, when her eye catches on a Senior version of the manual, laid open on the counter.

“Local Body Retrieval Inquiries, Currently Ongoing,” says the top of the page.  Then, under that, a list of names:

_Dao, Grace [humanoid, female, mid-latency].  Physical status: Recall, as of JD 2452762.4.  Last seen at latitude 37:20:06N, longitude 75:00:58W; SE of Chesapeake Bay_

_Garcon, Harvey [humanoid, male, mid-latency].  Physical status: Recall, as of—_

Nita steps back, alarmed.  _I shouldn’t be reading this,_ she thinks, flushing hot with shame.

Something nuzzles into the side of her leg.  Startled, she looks down to see Annie peering up at her with interest.

_Whatcha find, huh?_ the sheepdog asks her in Cyene.  _Whatcha find?_   For a moment, Nita thinks she can see someone else peering up at her through Annie’s eyes—a tender, familiar presence.  Then it’s gone.

Before she can explain herself, Tom walks into the dining room, sliding the door closed behind him.  He looks over and takes in the scene of Nita standing at the counter in front of his manual.

“Tom, I-” Nita gulps, horrified and embarrassed.  “I’m so sorry, I-I know I shouldn’t have looked—I didn’t mean-”

Tom raises a hand to cut her apology short, his other hand reaching back to run through his hair.  “No,” he says, “It’s my fault—I forgot that I left that there.  You shouldn’t have had to see it; I’m sorry…”  He strides over, closes the manual, and tosses it up into his personal claudication.

There is an uncomfortable silence.  Then Tom explains, “Among Earth humans, if a wizard dies on errantry, and it’s deemed unlikely that the body—if there is, indeed, a body remaining—that it’s unlikely to be found by the regular authorities, teams are assembled to track and retrieve it.  Often, the wizards closest to the individual hold a burial ceremony in a private location.  If the wizard’s nonwizardly family or friends are aware of wizardry, we include them as well.”

Tom turns his head to look out the kitchen window, then continues.  “As Seniors for this region, Carl and I make a lot of the calls as to which bodies should be targeted for retrieval along the East Coast.  We’re responsible for making sure the right people are put on the job, as well.  Not everyone can handle it.  And as you can imagine…” he sighs.  “Well, we’ve had an increase in cases, since the Pullulus event.”

Nita feels her chest go tight.  She had heard the stories about how frantic things had been on Earth during the affair with the Hesper—too few wizards with too little experience, suddenly tasked with keeping the planet running under conditions much worse than their adult counterparts had previously handled, due to the effects of the universe’s expansion.  But she hadn’t thought much of the Earth casualties until now—she had been too focused on everything that had happened on Rashah and the moon.

“Is there anything I can do?”  She hates how small her voice sounds.

Tom shakes his head sadly.  “No, Nita… you’ve done your part already.  It’s up to the adults to handle this now.”  Annie trots over to jump on him, whining softly.  He bends down to scratch her behind the ears.  Nita can’t see his face, but she can hear him say, in a quiet voice, “It’s the young who fight the wars, and the old who bury the dead.”

Hot tears begin to sting Nita’s eyes.  “I wish-” she says, then stops.  In the past, Tom has often reminded her that wizardry has little to do with wishing.

He doesn’t this time.  “I know,” he says simply.  “I know.”

 

 

A few days later, she finds her mind drifting during their morning session.

_In Life’s name… For Life’s sake… I hope that I can finish my English paper tonight.  Why did I tell Carmella I’d meet her after school; I don’t have time… In Life’s name… Were there always this many bugs crawling all over the place?_   She reaches up to swat at something buzzing around her ear.  _For Life’s—why did I have to wear this shirt; it must be the scratchiest thing I—_

Her train of thought is interrupted by a poke to the side of her head.  She looks over at Tom, who is wearing an expression of cheerful amusement.

“You”—he pokes her on the forehead—“are not”—another poke on the forehead—“maintaining”— _poke_ —“focus”— _poke_ , _poke_ , _poke_.

Nita sighs in exasperation.  “I know,” she says, “but it’s harder than before!  There’s only so many times you can repeat the same phrases before they start to lose meaning!  And I’ve got a lot on my mind right now!”

“I’m sure you do!  But this is important, Nita.  It’s normal, though, getting distracted during the repetitions.  Eventually, the meaning will return.  In the meantime, try to catch yourself when your mind starts to wander and resume as well as you can.  Don’t be overly harsh with yourself—this isn’t something you can ‘brute force’ your way through.  But keep coming back.  I promise, it won’t have been in vain.”

“Okay.”  Nita looks forward, closes her eyes, and resumes.

 

 

One dreary Monday morning, Nita awakens to the beeping of her alarm to find herself tangled up in her bedsheets and feeling even more tired than she had been the previous evening.  She wipes sweat off her brow and briefly considers hitting the snooze button on her alarm clock, then decides against it—if she doesn’t get out of bed now, she never will.

She goes through her morning routine in a daze, getting more and more irritated with herself by the minute.  By the time she appears by the koi pond, she’s in a foul mood.  She throws her mat down on the ground next to Tom and drops onto it in a huff.  He gives her a concerned look.

“Earbuds out, please,” he says, tapping on his ear.

Nita rolls her eyes and pulls out her earbuds.  She turns off her mp3 player, then shoves both it and the earbuds into her claudication.

“Silence is key to this process,” Tom explains patiently.

“Sometimes, I just don’t—” Nita restrains herself with effort.

“Don’t what?”

She closes her eyes.  “Never mind.”

_Calm down, Nita_ , she tells herself.  _This is nothing to get worked up about.  It’s just a few minutes of quiet time…_

_Alone…_

Nita starts the count up again in her head.  _In Life’s name…_

_Blaster fire.  Impacts against her shield.  No choice now—_

_For Life’s sake…_

_She aims the accelerator, fires, “Sorry”, aims again—_

_In Life’s name…_

_Shadows crumpling one by one, living things don’t fall like that—_

_For Life’s sake—_

_Are you_ KIDDING _?  You_ killed _them!  You’re a_ murderer _!_

Nita realizes that she’s begun breathing hard in ragged gasps.  She opens her eyes to find Tom kneeling down in front of her, peering into her face with worry.

“Nita?  You alright?”  He puts a hand on her shoulder.

“I, uh,” she swallows, shakes her head.  “The Crossings—some of the stuff I had to do-” She puts a hand over her eyes, controlling herself tightly.  “I killed some of them—the Tawalf mercenaries.  Not just mindless agents of the Lone Power… living beings with free will.”

Tom nods, looking sober.  “It was pretty clear-cut, though,” he says gently.  “Self-defense.  Completely justified.  And you gave them proper warning.”

Nita nods back.  “I know.”  She takes a shaky breath.  “I did have resolve when I was doing it.  And also adrenaline, I suppose.  But still, I… it was a really unpleasant experience.”  And knowing that it was justified didn’t take away the nightmares, or the unsettling knowledge that next time, the violence would come more easily to her…

“Yeah.”  There’s recognition in Tom’s eyes.  “The fact that you found the experience so unpleasant is a reassuring sign, in its own way.  But as for the nightmares—have you considered talking to Rober—Mr. Millman about them?”

Nita grins despite herself.  She’d been surprised to find out that Tom and Carl were friends with her psychologist, even after he had told her that he knew some wizards of his own.  _The secret lives of grown-ups… sometimes I wonder if they all know each other._

“I haven’t yet,” she admits, “but I think I will, now.  I mean, I don’t think I have full-blown PTSD, or anything, but-” She shrugs.  “I should probably get it checked out anyway.”

“I agree.”

Nita lets out a breath.  “Sorry for being short with you, earlier.  I think I can pull myself together for the rest of this session.”

Tom pats her arm.  “Good,” he says, then crawls over to sit back down on his mat.

 

 

On a bright and muggy Thursday morning, Tom announces, “We’re going to do some guided meditation.”  He sets up their mats so that he and Nita sit facing each other.  She closes her eyes and starts breathing, and she can hear him tap his fingers to get a feel for her count.  Then he starts to speak in a low, melodic murmur, similar to the way she’s heard Carl talk to her manual in the past.

“The breath is a symbol and a sign in many of the Earth’s great spiritual traditions,” he begins.  “In the Hebrew Bible, the Lord breathes life into the first people.  In the Gospels, Jesus of Nazareth breathes the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, initiating them into a new life.  In Hinduism, breath is synonymous with the _prana_ , the vital force, or life energy.  In each instance, we are made aware of the breath’s basic connection to life and its rhythms.  Breathe.”

Nita breathes deeply.

“In humans, breathing is a reflex,” Tom continues.  “It is regulated by the brainstem, which monitors the blood and adjusts the rate and volume of breathing accordingly.    For the most part, there is nothing that you do consciously to make this happen—it is all managed for you.  Whether you are reading, or eating, or sleeping, your body continues a constant exchange of tidal volume without your deliberate control.  It is all too easy to take this for granted.  Here in this moment, appreciate it.  Breathe.

“That of which you are currently aware is but the tip of the iceberg that is the process of respiration.  From your lungs, oxygen is ferried by the blood to every cell in your body.  Within each cell, this oxygen is used as only one component in the web of interconnecting reactions that make up human metabolism.  Every cell is a tiny universe unto itself, a marvel of biochemistry.  Apart from your knowledge or effort, apart from your cares and concerns, each little universe keeps its post, does its duty, at all times.  By this process, the equilibrium necessary for life is automatically maintained, day to day, minute to minute, beat to beat.  Breathe.”

As Nita breathes, Tom’s words paint pictures in her mind of complexities and intricacies beyond her understanding.  It is like a kaleidoscope of constantly unfolding, unfathomable images—but this time _she_ is the kaleidoscope, every part of her more fearful and beautiful than she could ever have imagined.

Tom goes on, “Each aspect of breathing paints a larger picture of the life it sustains, and of Life at Its core—of Life as intrinsically beautiful, of Life as unconditional, unmerited Gift.  It is this Life, which is unparalleled Gift, that wizards are sworn to serve—even at the cost of their own lives, if necessary.  It is a calling most noble and humbling, to participate in the great Gift.  Breathe.”

_In Life’s name… For Life’s sake…_   The words repeat themselves in her mind again.  But this time, they aren’t a hollow repetition.  This time, she can hear every wizard that has ever lived and ever will live, saying the words with her, called ever onward into the universal Gift, wherever it may lead them.

When at last she opens her eyes, she feels truly at peace for the first time in months.

 

 

“Visualization and practical application!” says Tom the next morning.  On the patio next to his mat is a simple spell diagram.  Next to that is a medium-sized cardboard box.

Once they’ve settled down, facing each other across the spell diagram, Tom explains their work for that day.

“You’ll have noticed that this isn’t a normal power diagram,” he says.  “It’s been reworked to take only what energy you deign to grant it from moment to moment.  Most spells, of course, are designed to take energy from you on a passive basis, usually at a delayed onset from when each spell is enacted.  For the purpose of this exercise, I’ve built this one to require an active energy feed on your part.”

He reaches into the cardboard box and pulls out a lightbulb.  He then lays the lightbulb into a receptor part of the diagram.

“The problem with the conventional way of powering spells, particularly when you get older,” Tom continues, “is that even though you may be willing to pay the price consciously, your body and subconscious mind are not attuned to the sacrifice.  Without your knowledge, there remain parts of you that fight it—so that when the energy is demanded, you end up paying a higher price than you might have, had all of you been willing.”

He looks up at her.  “We’re going to practice bringing you fully into the energy payment.  I’ve constructed a circuit of sorts, with you as the ‘battery’.  While you breathe, I want you to imagine your energy as a kind of nimbus surrounding you, then to visualize feeding that energy into the spell, slowly and intentionally.  Keep both your breathing and the feeding as steady as you can.”

“Okay.”  Nita stretches out her hands and places her palms into her part of spell.  Keeping her eyes on the lightbulb, she begins to breathe slowly and focus, imagining what Tom had told her to.

_A cloud of light around me_ , she thinks.  _Now I just have to let the light go into the circuit…_

But nothing happens.  _What is this?_ she wonders, annoyed.  Getting impatient, she gives the setup a mental push-

And then flinches back as the lightbulb flares and explodes with a tinkle of glass.  Tom reacts with lightning speed, containing the explosion within a small force field, then throwing the pieces of the lightbulb into the patio garbage can with a flick of his wrist.

Nita hunches her shoulders.  “Sorry,” she says, laughing awkwardly.  “That was pretty dismal, wasn’t it?”

Tom shakes his head.  “It’s normal to struggle a bit with this.  It’s a subtle technique.”  He retrieves another lightbulb from the box, and they begin again.

But fifteen minutes and six lightbulbs later, Nita has to wonder if it’s just her.

“Sorry,” she says again, as she hoists on her backpack.  “I’m breaking all of your lightbulbs!”

Tom looks over at the box.  “What, these?  Don’t worry about it.  I keep plenty of boxes in the basement.  I kind of have to, given my housemate.  It’s like one of those jokes.”  He gives Nita a conspiratorial wink, then throws his head back to fix his sights on the open second-story window above their heads.  “Hey,” he calls out, “how many wizards does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”  He smirks, then continues, “That depends!  Is one of the wizards Carl Romeo?”

Nita hears something slam above them, then Carl’s Brooklyn-accented voice grumbling “I’ll show _you_ -” followed by a steady stream of words that wizards should probably avoid saying.  She muffles her laughter behind her hand, then sets off toward school.

 

 

A few mornings later, Nita sits down with lightbulb #17.

_I could help_ , offers the peridexis.  _This is taking a lot of time._

But Nita is determined to get this right on her own.  _Thanks for offering, Bobo_ , she replies, _but I think that would defeat the purpose of the exercise.  I have to do this for myself._

_Okay, then, if you must._   She can feel the peridexis’ ambivalence as it retreats back into her mind.

_Deep breathing_ , she reminds herself.  _Steady focus.  Give freely and calmly…_

She visualizes the cloud of light around her, taking a few moments to get a feel for the energy.  Then she tries to let it feed.

Nothing.  The lightbulb sits on the patio as dull as ever.

_Come on…_ Nita spends a few more minutes maintaining focus, hesitant to rush things.

Then, something clicks.  It feels like letting go of something she hadn’t been aware she was holding.

Energy drains from the cloud down into the spell.  And there…

The lightbulb turns on.

Nita stares at it, stunned and afraid to move too quickly, in case her focus should break.  Finally, she gets enough control of herself to risk speaking.

“Tom,” she whispers excitedly, “I did it!  I got it to light up!”

She looks up to find Tom slumped forward, asleep.

Annoyed, she pokes him in the forehead.  Tom starts awake, blinking at her in confusion.

“You”—she pokes him again—“are not”— _poke_ —“paying”— _poke_ —“attention”— _poke_ , _poke_ , _poke_.

Tom rears back sheepishly.  “My apologies,” he says.  “Late”—he yawns into a fist—“Late night on Rirhath B…”

“Excuses, excuses.”  She can never let go of an opportunity to tease him.

He raises his eyebrows.  “The Crossings are still a mess,” he says, “at least in part because _someone_ decided to invent a rather _unfavorable_  spell there, instead of in the practice universes like a civilized wizard.  Ring any bells?”

Nita laughs as she gets up off her mat.  “Necessity is the mother of invention, Tom!”

Tom looks resigned.  “I guess I can’t argue with that,” he admits.  He sits still and looks off over the hedge, lost in thought.

Nita studies him carefully.  He doesn’t look strained, not really.  Like her, he’s been recovering from the Pullulus War slowly and steadily.  Still, he isn’t quite at ease, either.  _Preoccupied_ , Nita thinks.  _‘Preoccupied’ is the word I’m looking for.  Well, I can’t say I blame him…_

He’s her Senior.  It isn’t her place to offer him advice.  But maybe, just this once…

“Breathe, Tom,” she reminds him kindly.

Smiling up at her, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Intergenerational friendships are lovely.


End file.
